BOISE, ID — The Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI) and IEHA have announced mutual support of ISSA’s Transpare® Informed Purchaser Program, by featuring information about Transpare on the respective websites of HFI and IEHA.

According to Allen Rathey, president of HFI: “Being able to see clearly into a matter without obstruction, cloudiness or distortion is the meaning of transparency. ISSA's Transpare aims to help professionals see clearly into the world of green claims without distortion - to create ‘green claims transparency’ by providing clear, standardized green purchasing and labeling information.”

“We are pleased to support this worthy endeavor which harmonizes with seeking the greater good and IEHA’s mission to promote greener, healthier and more sustainable indoor environments,” said Beth Risinger, Executive Director and CEO of IEHA.

“In order to become an Informed Purchaser and be recognized for a commitment to protect the environment, an organization needs to sign a pledge stating that it will - where possible - use Transpare to research, identify and select cleaning products. Informed Purchasers will receive a certificate of recognition and an Informed Purchaser logo for use on promotional materials such as websites and business cards. Informed Purchasers will have the opportunity to participate in articles and case studies about Transpare and thereby receive further recognition of their commitment to sustainability,” according to David Schweizer, Account Executive, Environmental Services, ISSA. To become an Informed Purchaser, contact davids@issa.com and request an Informed Purchaser Pledge.

What info does Transpare provide?

• Detailed easy-to-compare facts about the environmental health and safety attributes of cleaning products; i.e., the environmental profiles of cleaning products, e.g., what makes a product green, and how green it is;
• Whether or not products meet specific criteria of buyers based on purchasing pre-sets or filters;
• Custom search criteria or thresholds.

Purchasing pre-sets include the criteria of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Efficient Design for Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) and those for ISSA's Cleaning Industry Management Standard for Green Buildings (CIMS-GB) certification.

What are its other features? Transpare can:

• Perform side-by-side comparisons of products;
• Create a summary of data to save or e-mail.

What does Transpare do for the market?

• Makes it easier for manufacturers to differentiate greener products;
• Enables purchasers to select products based on pre-set or custom filters, then to buy them from manufacturers who register and provide full disclosure of the required info;
• Reduces “greenwashing” by creating uniform language and a level playing field for consistently communicating product environmental metrics.

More about Transpare

Transpare is a free, web-based product registry that makes it easy to find and research cleaning products, and select the best products for a facility. Transpare - developed by Ecoform with the support of ISSA - does this by communicating the specific environmental, health, and safety attributes of cleaning products in an easy-to-understand manner that allows purchasers to directly compare products’ environmental performance. Simple explanations are accessible through pop-up descriptions for each product attribute, making it easy to decide which attributes are most important for a facility. Whether professionals are concerned with air quality issues, protecting the environment, or making a facility a safer place to be, Transpare can help achieve those goals.

About IEHA
IEHA is a 3,200-plus professional member organization for persons who direct cleaning, maintenance, housekeeping, grounds keeping, safety and/or indoor environmental programs in commercial, industrial or institutional facilities. The organization was founded in New York City in 1930, and is now located in Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of the State’s capitol, Columbus. IEHA provides its members with an array of professional development, educational, certification and career opportunities. For more information, visit www.ieha.org.

About HFI
The Healthy Facilities Institute® (HFI) Educational Center and Website strives to provide authoritative information for creating and maintaining clean, healthy indoor environments. Since buildings are ecosystems, HFI works to address the many interrelated aspects of built environments — such as air, water, energy, materials and resources, green cleaning, indoor environmental quality, waste management, people and more — as an integrated or holistic system. Inasmuch as “Clean” is a metaphor for healthy indoor spaces, HFI also emphasizes prevention and removal of pollutants or contaminants to help ensure optimum conditions for living, learning and working. Visit The Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI).